Francis Ingham, director general of the PRCA, called it 'a bastard of a bill – it has no family supporting it'.

Ingham said: ‘This is a bad bill. We will be proposing amendments to make it workable so any register covers everyone who lobbies regardless of who they work for.’

CIPR CEO Jane Wilson said she was ‘thoroughly disappointed’ with the bill making it through the second stage, calling it 'fundamentally flawed'.

‘We hope that members of Parliament will now engage with the representatives of the lobbying industry as this bill moves forward,’ she added.

The vote, which was whipped, passed the second reading by 309 votes to 247. It drew opposition from five Conservatives - Douglas Carswell, Philip Davies, David Davis, Zac Goldsmith and David Nuttall.

The Leader of the House, Andrew Lansley, told MPs that lobbying was a ‘very often welcome part of policy making’ and said the moves were not to ‘prevent lobbying but to make it transparent about who is lobbying whom and for what’.

On proposals to cap the spending of charities and trade unions on funding election candidates at £390,000 he added they 'should not be alarmed that this in any sense impacts on their ability to campaign on policy issues'.

However, shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle called the bill ‘one of the worst pieces of legislation I've seen any government produce in a very long time’.

She added: ‘The bill is hurried, badly drafted, an agglomeration of the inadequate and sinister and partisan.’

The proposed spending cap would replace the current limit of £988,000 and kick in a year before the general election.

Chloe Stables, parliamentary and media manager at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), countered Government reassurances the bill would not have wide impact on charity work, stating that legal advice given to the NCVO implied otherwise.

While broadly welcoming the drive to increase transparency, she explained: ‘We continue to have a number of concerns as the definition defining electoral purposes is too broad and threatens to catch a lot of charitable activity.